


Crumbs

by seapigeon



Series: Twitter Fluff Prompts [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ballet, Birds, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Getting Together, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Zoo, the barest hint of Barbershop Quartet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: Natasha chooses the strangest ways to open up, but Sam is more than willing to sacrifice his dignity to get to know her better.





	Crumbs

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for the prompt from @JCtheBird:
> 
> SamNat at the zoo, the cranes are doing their courtship dance. Natasha's like "I'm gonna learn how to do that for us" and Sam's like "Please no because if you do, I'm gonna have to learn it too."
> 
> Here's the courtship dance in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_O40AC9EpM

“You know,” Natasha says out of the blue, “back when I did ballet, we performed Swan Lake. The director made us study birds so we could move like them.”

Sam digests that. They’re at the zoo, and so far Natasha has been drawn to the reptiles and the birds. Not exactly the most popular animals in the place, but that’s all right; it just means less of a crowd. That suits him fine, considering they shouldn’t be here in the first place.

They were all getting a little stir-crazy, though. The fugitive life is a hard one. They needed a break.

In the enclosure, two cranes are doing a frankly ridiculous series of movements that can only be a mating dance. Sam is glad humans don’t have to do any such thing to declare their intentions.

_ But don’t they?  _ he thinks, eyes on Natasha’s profile.

Hell, maybe it would be easier if  _ all  _ he had to do was a little dance.

“Did you like ballet?” he asks. Natasha doesn’t talk about her past much, but every now and then she’ll let something slip. It’s purposeful, he thinks. A clue, a bread crumb.  _ Make me talk. _

“I think I did,” she replies, staring intently at the cranes. “I was good at it.”

That’s not the same thing, but he’s come to realize she’s only a few miles ahead of Barnes in the journey to becoming a self-actualized person. She’s just better at fooling people. It’s her bread and butter, after all.

“Have you taken any lessons since…?”

She looks at him, considering. “No. But maybe this is a lesson.” She lifts her chin toward the birds with a Mona Lisa smile.

Sam looks back at the cranes with the vague feeling that he’s in for trouble.

  
  
  


“ _ How _ do you make that look so graceful?” Sam demands. He doesn’t know where Steve and Bucky are, but he and Natasha are two bottles deep at their AirBnB. As soon as they got back she pushed the coffee table out of the way and began to stretch. Not fifteen minutes later he watched her execute a passable version of the cranes’ courtship dance, and she’s been perfecting it between sips of wine.

The cranes looked absurd doing this. Bobbing their heads, jumping, turning in circles, throwing grass and twigs at each other. He’s always been more a fan of the raptors; he can dance just fine in the sky. But the way Natasha moves? He’s rapidly changing his mind.

“Come on, Wilson,” she goads. “I’m not supposed to be doing this alone.”

It’s clear that she expects him to protest. It's almost a dare. There’s a certain sense of pride, though, that Sam has to live up to; he’s The Falcon. He should be able to do one silly bird dance. And as dangerous as Natasha is, this little group has become the safest place in the world. He can fall apart, he can make a fool of himself, he can get angry, and when the sun rises they’ll all still be there at his side.

He does his best, and doesn’t take it personally when she laughs so hard she cries.


End file.
